Interventions (40 page)

Over the course of 1997 and 1998, a series of inspections led to confrontations with the Iraqi authorities. One of my concerns was the impact of the Iraq sanctions on the UN's standing around the world. The international community's engagement in Iraq was heavily militarized, given the no-fly zone, the periodic threats of bombings, and the intrusive inspectors. Also, Iraq was not allowed to develop its infrastructure and its oil resources were managed by the UN. However misplaced a view, this was widely seen—in the developing world in particular—as a case of the UN picking on a weak country with Security Council resolutions a cloak for great-power bullying. The question leaders across the Middle East and beyond continuously asked me throughout the years from 1997 to 2003 was simple: if the UN can impose such draconian measures on a government to force compliance with UN resolutions, why has it not done the same with Israel? One of the arguments the Americans were making was that Saddam had not implemented UN resolutions. But Israel was in similar noncompliance with UN resolutions over the territories it had occupied since 1967. This inconsistency incensed many parties.

In November 1997, I personally stepped into the Iraq quagmire for the first time. I knew full well that my interventions would be met with suspicion and maneuvering on all sides, but I was equally certain that there was a vital role to be played. I appointed three senior diplomats, Lakhdar Brahimi, Emilio Cardenas, and Jan Eliasson, to go to Baghdad to engage the Iraqis. Baghdad at this time was clearly determined to reengage the UN at a senior level, namely with me as secretary-general, and it had made its negotiating position clear: it was not seeking confrontation; it had implemented all Security Council resolutions without receiving adequate respect for its sovereignty, integrity, and security; and that one member state—the United States—was using UNSCOM for its own purposes.

Later in November, as pressure was growing on UNSCOM to amend its practices and possibly change the composition of its inspection teams, U.S. secretary of state Madeleine Albright called me to urge that all such appeals for the alteration of UNSCOM's work be rejected and that all key decisions be left to the Council and UNSCOM. “It's important for your stature that you do not bend,” she said, adding that she spoke as “a friend.” “We must retain the independence of UNSCOM.” With the latter point I agreed entirely, but I suspect we had different ideas on what “independence” meant in this case.

What became increasingly clear was that Butler's management and leadership of UNSCOM was, in fact, a gift to Saddam—allowing him, with a growing body of evidence—to claim that he was all for disarming and cooperating with the international community, but that UNSCOM's approach made this impossible. This was entirely untrue, of course, but what Butler and his backers in Washington and London failed to understand was that the further they pushed him to do their bidding, the more he undermined his own position and that of his inspection organization.

In late 1997, it was clear the United States had lost patience with the inspections process and was agitating for military action or full Iraqi compliance. UN inspectors under Rolf Ekeus, a shrewd, meticulous, and persistent Swedish diplomat, had been in Iraq for some seven years and had in that period destroyed more weapons of mass destruction than the coalition had during the entire Gulf War. This record of success, however, was achieved despite—and not because of—the regime's attitude toward the inspections. By this time, Iraq had identified a new reason to resist cooperation; namely, the national security and dignity of its presidential sites—vast complexes of buildings and parks designed for Saddam and the senior leadership of Iraq. Of course, this resistance flouted resolution 687, which had made clear that there could be no exceptions to the demand for immediate and unconditional access to all sites. I knew Saddam had to open these “presidential sites” and palaces, as stipulated by resolution 687, but I also felt deeply uneasy that the world could go to war over this issue—any deaths arising from this relatively trivial matter seemed utterly needless. I believed there was a way to win full compliance without unnecessary humiliation for the Iraqis.

On February 13, 1998, as consultations with the permanent five members continued and I decided to send a technical team led by Staffan de Mistura to Baghdad to map the presidential sites prior to my own arrival, I received a call from Albright. She was clearly getting worried about the idea of a special, high-level UN mission to Baghdad following the technical visit and pleaded with me not to travel before a permanent five consensus had been reached. As this had always been the basis for my trip, I stressed my agreement. But then she insisted that by sending a technical team to Baghdad I was somehow accommodating Iraqi demands. If anything, I corrected her, I was calling their bluff. If the Iraqis considered the presidential sites to be critically sensitive locations this was their chance to delineate where they began and where they ended, putting a stop to the games that were being played around them.

The next Monday morning I received calls from Clinton and Albright within an hour of each other. They had clearly decided that it was the day to send me a tough message—not least for domestic political reasons. I could sense that Clinton had just been given an overall briefing of the Iraq problem, because he began with an overview and then got to his point of saying that he wanted a diplomatic solution as much as I did, but that it had to be principled and have integrity. I assured Clinton that that was precisely the point of my initiative—to ensure the continuing lead of UNSCOM in all inspections under its executive chairman. But, by adding new diplomats to each of the teams we could give the Iraqis something that represented respect for their own dignity, but which in no way impeded the effectiveness of the inspections.

Albright, as always, went straight to the point: “Everyone here is concerned about whether you really got the message about how firm we are,” and I replied, “Absolutely, I know the stakes and the mood in the nation and the other party.” I explained that the solution was simple: the new inspections team would be headed by an UNSCOM commissioner and would be staffed by permanent staff of UNSCOM and IAEA, and directed by Butler, the executive chairman of UNSCOM. Additional members of a diplomatic background would be appointed jointly by myself and Butler. Unconvinced, Albright resorted to the kind of warning with which I would soon become familiar: “We won't hesitate to say that a deal with Iraq was a lousy one if that proved to be the case.”

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I
resolved to go to Baghdad and on the Sunday before my mission, Albright came up to New York and met me at the residence of the secretary-general to give me her “red lines,” her final demands that all sites must be accessible, and for multiple visits, without time limits. None of these were a surprise or a problem for me, and I also knew that the purpose of her visit had as much to do with internal U.S. politics as with the mission itself. For the Clinton administration that meant, on many occasions, needing to seem tough with the UN. She even asked if I would go “even if we wouldn't want it.” I told her that I would be going to Baghdad with a strong consensus from the Council that Iraq must return to compliance—but I would also be preparing my own negotiating points. I had to remind her of my role as secretary-general, answerable to 191 other member states and of our duty to seek peaceful resolution of disputes.

On arrival in Baghdad, I was met on the tarmac by foreign minister Tariq Aziz and some two hundred journalists from around the world who had been allowed into the country by the Iraqis to highlight the talks. I was then driven to a large white guesthouse where my team and I prepared for the next days' talks. Sitting amid the splendor (however kitsch) of Saddam's houses, I could not help thinking of the waste and abuse of it all, and how an entire generation of Iraqis had been denied the opportunities of prosperity, dignity, and freedom for the sake of one man's grip on power.

I knew that what the Iraqi regime sought was a sense of dignity and respect throughout this process. This was not so different from the Chinese tradition of emphasis on not losing face. I had learned from my own experience of negotiating with Iraqis and from the advice of aides such as Lakhdar Brahimi that such dignity could be a matter of life and death—however trumped up or manufactured it might seem to be in Western eyes. To those who would ask why Saddam should be shown any respect or dignity—and that achieving mutual trust with a tyrant was an affront to his many victims—I could reply only that this was my task. As long as the international community was committed to an inspection regime requiring Iraq's cooperation, how else were we going to obtain it?

We then entered negotiations with the Iraqi team led by Aziz. From this meeting, which lasted until two in the morning, I had a sense that we would be able to agree on a resumption of inspections. But it was clear that only one man could authorize it: Saddam. We were left in the dark about whether—and when—a meeting with Saddam would take place. Shortly before noon the next day a cortege of cars suddenly appeared to take me to meet with him. When we entered one of his palaces, I found that he had changed out of his usual military fatigues into a navy-blue suit—an indication it seemed of his understanding of the need to show at least the outward signs of diplomacy.

We sat down together on the lush, gold-rimmed seats of a reception room. He was careful and correct in his manners and anchored by a deep and confident calm at all times. He was almost serene, exhibiting in his personal character the untouchable status he had long held in Iraq.

My objective was clear: to obtain Saddam's agreement to a resumption of inspection by giving him a ladder to climb down from his position of defiance. In the absence of any way to force him to concede, I set out to build a basis for agreement by appealing to his sense of pride in building Iraq into a modern state and the need to protect it from further harm. I opened by seeking to appeal to his sense of responsibility for the fate of his country—including his vanity as a leader. I recounted the wars Iraq had been through and said, “Mr. President, you are a builder. You have spent years building and rebuilding Iraq following war.” I stressed my recognition of how far they had come in rebuilding their society after so much destruction—which of course he had been responsible for. Then I urged him to avoid all of this progress being set back over a dispute over palaces. “You say you have no weapons in the palaces,” I said. “In that case, open the doors and let the inspectors go and see for themselves.” Halfway through the conversation, he said, “Excuse me; I have to go and pray.” Once I was alone with his interpreter, I turned to him and asked: “Am I getting through to him?” “Yes,” he replied, “Yes. Yes.” He was clearly relieved, hoping that this would avoid another war.

When Saddam returned, he thanked me and praised my courage, adding that “I know powerful people did not want you to come.” Stating that he trusted me, he authorized his team to complete the draft agreement and we received his approval by midnight. Before saying good-bye, I urged Saddam not to push each issue or dispute to a crisis point but instead to call me to discuss his concerns so we could avoid a repetition of this incident. He looked at the phone at his side, and then at me, and said, “That thing, I never touch it.” He was clearly concerned about more than whether the phone could be tapped.

The agreement secured Iraq's commitment to providing “immediate, unconditional, and unrestricted access” to UNSCOM, providing we followed a set of special procedures when accessing eight presidential sites to address Saddam's requests for dignity and respect by including diplomats, and not just technical experts, in inspection teams.

On my return to UN headquarters in New York, I emphasized to the press that this was a case study in what diplomacy backed by force could achieve—that you show force in order not to use it. “You can do a lot with diplomacy, but with diplomacy backed up by force you can get a lot more done.”

When I took some questions from the assembled reporters I learned my first, hard lesson about the nature of public diplomacy—and the uses and abuses of my words. In answer to a simple question about the deal with Saddam, I stated what I thought was the obvious and replied that he was a man I could do business with—as I evidently just had. Of course, looking back today, I can see how this could be misconstrued not only as approving of his character but also as a lack of skepticism regarding Iraq's commitment to upholding this agreement and the tyrannical nature of his regime.

Just as the means had to be diplomacy backed by the credible threat of force, the ends were clear: Iraq's full compliance with all Security Council resolutions, the disarmament of Iraq, reintegrating its people into the international community, securing the stability of the Gulf region, and ensuring the effectiveness of the United Nations as a guarantor of international peace and security. No secretary-general has the luxury of choosing whom to engage with to achieve these objectives—in the case of Iraq and elsewhere.

Sitting down with leaders such as Saddam—or Bashir of Sudan or Gadhafi of Libya—is a responsibility you cannot shirk given what you're trying to achieve. You need to deal with those who can make a difference, those who can stop the bloodshed. You have to talk to the leaders, and get them to find a way to end the killing. Otherwise, how do you accomplish it? I also believed that such leaders could be engaged on a range of levels and motivations, however selfish, that I could turn to the benefit of a broader mission for peace. If you don't try it you won't ever know. You have to test it. The stakes are so high that you do not have the luxury of saying. “I'm not going to talk to this guy. I'm not going to shake his hand.” By doing that you may be condemning thousands and millions to their deaths or further persecution. I'm trying to get them to do the right thing. I may fail—but I have a responsibility to try, to test it.